April 11, 2006

Nepal police open fire on anti-king protests

by ssavage

By Y.P. Rajesh and Gopal Sharma

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Nepali troops opened fire on
protesters on Tuesday, wounding several, after they burned
tires, chanted slogans and clashed with police in defiance of a
curfew in the sixth day of mass protests against the king.

The violence came as international pressure increased on
King Gyanendra to end his crackdown on the protests, in which
three people have been killed and hundreds wounded.

The street campaign is the most intense since the
58-year-old monarch sacked the government and seized power 14
months ago.

Some analysts say it is only a matter of time before the
king runs out of options. They say the protests and clashes,
including in places where shoot-on-sight curfews were in force,
showed more ordinary people were coming out openly against him.

But sources close to the palace said the king, whom some
analysts describe as a stubborn ruler, was unlikely to relent.

Troops baton charged, tear gassed and then opened fire to
disperse more than 500 slogan-shouting demonstrators in the
Kathmandu suburb of Gongabu, wounding at least 50 protesters, a
Reuters reporter at the scene said.

It was the first time troops opened fire in the capital
during the latest anti-king campaign. Emergency medical workers
said several among the 50 wounded had sustained bullet
injuries.

Tension flared in the area after the shooting as the
activists returned soon and the army took position and gun fire
could be heard again.

Troops also opened fire at a meeting called in the western
tourist resort town of Pokhara to mourn a protester shot dead
by the army there on Saturday, wounding two people, witnesses
said.

In another Kathmandu suburb, about 500 youths burned tires
on the road, chanting "We want Democracy" and "Gyanendra leave
the country." Riot police charged at them with batons and beat
them up, wounding at least two people before the crowd was
dispersed.

The latest series of demonstrations and a nationwide
general strike began last Thursday in an attempt to force
Gyanendra to step down and hand power to an all-party
government.

The campaign, backed by Maoist insurgents, had been due to
end on Sunday but was extended indefinitely as stringent
security measures prevented big rallies against the king.

On Tuesday, the government said it would search houses in
Kathmandu for Maoist rebels who it says have infiltrated the
protests and sparked violence.

U.S. REBUKE

So far, more than 300 people have been wounded and about
1,500 protesters detained during protests, the parties said.

Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders said
97 journalists had been detained and 24 wounded across the
country.

While the mass campaign has plunged the nation deeper into
turmoil, the king has stayed away from the capital for nearly
two months, making an extended tour of the countryside.

The king says he was forced to take absolute power after
politicians failed to quell the violent Maoist revolt aimed at
toppling the monarchy, which has killed more than 13,000 people
in the impoverished Himalayan country.

The revolt has also wrecked the economy of one of the
poorest countries in the world which lives off aid and tourism.

The State Department issued a sharp rebuke to the king on
Monday for his handling of the protests, saying the decision to
impose palace rule had failed "in every regard."

"The king's continuing failure to bring the parties back
into a process to restore democracy has compounded the
problem," spokesman Sean McCormack said in Washington. "The
United States calls upon the king to restore democracy
immediately."

Rights group Amnesty International urged the royalist
government to rein in the security forces, saying it feared an
increase in violence in the coming days.

"Restricting peaceful demonstrations by ban orders and
curfews and arbitrarily arresting hundreds of people only
inflames an already volatile situation," it said in a
statement.